State Government unveils $7 million to help food and beverage businesses expand and boost WA manufacturing

WA Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan has heralded local manufacturing as key to overcoming supply chain vulnerabilities while unveiling $7 million to help the State’s food and beverage businesses to do just that. Ms MacTiernan visited the Hellers Australia food production facility in Jandakot on Wednesday to announce the second round of the State Government’s $16.7m four-year Value Add Investment Grants program, which aims to help expand and diversity food and beverage manufacturing and value adding in WA. Hellers Australia received $700,000 as one of 18 food and business manufacturing businesses to receive a portion of the first $10m funding round announced last year, and used the funding to relocate its headquarters to WA. The New-Zealand smallgoods manufacturer acquired Moira Mac’s — a leading Australian manufacturer of chilled, ready-to-eat poultry — in 2018 as part of an Australian growth strategy. It last year integrated with Canon Foods, a WA-based food manufacturer of packaged chicken products. It used the State Government cash injection to expand its value-added butchery and ready-to-eat meals business and to relocate its home base from the Eastern States to Jandakot — creating 100 new WA jobs in the process. Hellers used the grant to increase capacity and capability by purchasing new meat preparation equipment, ovens, chiller and packaging equipment, and to upgrade its refrigeration and power to create operational efficiencies. Ms MacTiernan applauded Hellers’ creativity and its decision to take the “bold step” of relocating to WA and revealed the first round of grants had generated more than $132m in private sector investment and 600 new jobs. “Our Value Add Investments program is a powerful initiative to incentivise the diversification and strengthening our food and beverage supply chains to expand our State’s food processing and manufacturing capability,” she said. “It is also helping WA food and beverage processors and manufacturers to pivot to new and increasingly complex demands of today’s highly dynamic operating environment to forge new ways of doing business and capture opportunities.” There are two funding streams for the second round of the grants, with the richest the individual grants of between $250,000 and $750,000 available under the program’s capital investment funding stream to help businesses expand, diversify or relocate value adding and processing operations to WA. The second is a feasibility stream offering $30,000 to $100,000 to help plan and de-risk capital investment projects. The grants have an emphasis on supporting proposals that improve sustainability, contribute to emissions reduction reduction goals and strengthen resilience in WA’s food supply chain. To find out more about the grants, visit agric.wa.gov.au/VAIG